


Desperate Times

by Sheepnamedpig



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Crack, Gen, Hiccups, Kidnapping, and knitting needles, and lobotomies, can't forget those, just crack, played for laughs, sherlock causes his kidnapper to have a psychotic break, which is probably par for the course
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-23
Updated: 2012-07-23
Packaged: 2017-11-10 13:11:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 512
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/466669
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sheepnamedpig/pseuds/Sheepnamedpig
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>...call for desperate measures. Sherlock is a damn lucky bastard, especially considering the weirdness he sometimes gets involved in.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Desperate Times

**Author's Note:**

> For the prompt: Someone kidnaps Sherlock and, after deciding he's too much of a threat, decide to make sure he's permanently out of the way. They decide to give Sherlock a lobotomy.
> 
> Unbeta'd

The kidnapper clutches his skull, fingertips bone-white from the pressure. Behind him, Sherlock hiccups, completely involuntarily. The man's fingers spasm against his head.   
  
Three days.   
  
 _Three bloody days._  
  
A sympathetic and similarly suffering minion sidles up next to him.   
  
"Been three days, boss. Pretty sure that ain't natural."  
  
"Of course it's *hic* not, you imbe*hic*imbecile," Sherlock snarls.   
  
The lead kidnapper hunches over, wishing for a table to slam his head against. It's probably best that they don't, or he and Sherlock would have beaten each other bloody over first dibs at beating their heads on it until they'd achieved a concussed stupor.   
  
The kidnapper considers just letting the hiccup-afflicted pain-in-the-skull detective go. It's a thought he's been entertaining more frequently as of late, but as ever, he's caught between his criminal's pride and this seemingly innocuous threat to his sanity. Sherlock hiccups again and the man starts to feel the scales tipping in favour of cutting his losses and dumping this obnoxious arse and his sanity-threatening hiccups on a street corner somewhere.   
  
One of the younger guys, a twenty-something who delights in reading useless trivia, pipes up.   
  
"Apparently," he chirps, "hiccups are caused by a single brain cell."  
  
Sherlock hiccups at the kid. The lead kidnapper's sanity slips just that little bit further toward oblivion.   
  
"Is that so?" he asks mildly, turning to face the kid. The professional thug next to him sidles subtly out of arm's reach of his boss, unnerved by the way his too-bright eyes seem to be rolling a little aimlessly in their sockets.   
  
Sherlock hiccups.   
  
&&&  
  
"And then they cut open your skull and stuck a-" Lestrade consults his notes, not really believing what he'd written there himself. "-a knitting needle? Seriously? Into your brain?" John's complexion is still a little grey from the first time around hearing the story, and hearing it again makes him go pale, again.   
  
"The hiccups were apparently enough of a threat to the leader's sanity that he decided to deal with it in a more direct, permanent fashion."  
  
"By giving you a lobotomy."  
  
Sherlock narrows his eyes at Lestrade, who is looking at his notes as though someone had forged his handwriting and written nonsense there.  
  
"I would be the first to testify to your mental deficiencies, but I'm pretty sure you're not actually hard of hearing," Sherlock snipes, earning himself a sharp glare from the detective. Lestrade straightens in his chair by Sherlock's hospital bed, trying and failing to regain some gravitas.   
  
"And then you said that he sewed you up and just let you go?"  
  
"Yes. He was rambling on about medical school and traveling the world curing hiccups and neurosurgery or something inconsequential like that."  
  
"Joyful," Lestrade sighs, leaning back in his chair. John's relieved smile looks more like a pained cringe, but he's glad Sherlock is safe and apparently quite whole in spite of his impromptu brain surgery.   
  
Anderson, leaning against the far wall, rubs his jaw thoughtfully.   
  
"There's one thing I still don't understand, though," he says slowly. "Where did they get the knitting needle?"

**Author's Note:**

> To answer Anderson: they had the knitting needle because one of the kidnappers was practicing his purl stitch. He's working up to making a cableknit sweater, but he's got a ways to go, yet.


End file.
